


Drifting

by ajility



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Anxiety, Apathy, Character Study, Depression, Empty, Gen, Loneliness, One Shot, Outer Space, am i tagging it as such anyway? yep, but not particularly happy either, does this count as a character study? eeehhhh, not overly sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-17 09:53:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29964600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ajility/pseuds/ajility
Summary: Sometimes, the only thing to do is wander. It doesn't always help, and occasionally ends with him getting lost, but wandering is the most he can bear when the only thing he feels is loneliness. Danny... isn't a fan of loneliness.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18





	Drifting

**Author's Note:**

> Standard disclaimer that I'm new to this fandom, joined completely by accident, and as such, have no idea what the typical norms here are.

Sometimes, he feels so lonely it physically aches. It’s a weight on his chest and pressure in his lungs, it’s chains around his neck making it hard to breathe and turning every movement into something difficult. There’s never any catalyst, no cause and nothing he can pinpoint to avoid feeling like this later. It just… creeps up on him, and by the time he realizes it’s happening, it’s too late for him to fight it. 

Logically, Danny knows he’s being stupid. There’s no reason for him to feel like this, he has friends and family and people (ghosts) he can rely on. He could call up Sam and Tucker right now, talk to them for the rest of the night, but… he won’t. Logically, the best way to combat loneliness would be to ensure he’s not _alone_ , but he can never make himself search anyone out when he gets like this. So instead he turns intangible, his transformation washing over him quietly and without the usual fanfare, and floats upward.

He’s invisible, not just on the human spectrum but on most ghost ones as well, and he doesn’t pay attention to where he’s going. This is partially because he’s not going anywhere, has no destination in mind, but also because he just… doesn’t care. The ache fades a little when he’s in ghost form, but he doesn’t know if it’s because there’s an actual improvement, because ghosts don’t technically feel emotions in the way humans do, or if it’s just all in his head. In all honesty, Danny… doesn’t like to think about it. He doesn’t know why he feels this way, but he knows that it gets worse when he dwells on the differences between himself and humans (...or between himself and ghosts). 

Today seems to be shaping up as one of his worse days, however, and he can’t quite stop himself from thinking about it. His human body has changed since the Event. He’s put on muscle, gotten in shape, and even grown a bit even if Sam and Tucker both continue to be taller. He can also heal from injuries that’d’ve killed a normal person three times over in just a few hours, and sometimes his eyes start to reflect light even in his human form if he isn’t being careful enough. 

The lines between ‘human’ and ‘ghost’ have blurred, the more time goes on. His ghost form still looks different enough, has started to look more properly ‘ghost’, but when he’s not a ghost, he has to _focus_ to keep his teeth from sharpening, has to put effort into moving slower, at a human speed. He’s got muscle, but his body is too light. He’s never actively worked on building strength, but he can bench twice the weight the football team does (the _combined_ football team). He never gets enough sleep, but at some point, he just… stopped feeling tired. If he makes regular trips into the Ghost Zone, he doesn’t even need to eat as much (or maybe not at all, but he’s unwilling to confirm that).

Danny knows Sam and Tucker have noticed at least some of the changes, but they never mention it directly. They help him train, he practices martial arts with Sam, and he sometimes catches the looks they share when they think he isn’t looking, but they still don’t (or won’t?) bring it up. They all know he’s less human, but none of them know quite how much _less_ it is, and… sometimes, Danny worries they’re just as scared of him as he is himself. 

And it’s funny, because at first, Danny thought maybe he’d at least fit in more with ghosts now - he’s got the fangs, his ears are pointed, his skin is less _tan_ and more _green_ , he actually _looks the part_ now… but his ghost form has aged with his human form, and that’s something that sticks out to ghosts more than any of the changes to his human form sticks out to humans. Strong ghosts can purposely change their appearances, and a ghost’s appearance can change if they destabilize or get close to fading… but they don’t change gradually. They don’t change without intention, they don’t _age_. 

He’s different enough that other ghosts can pinpoint him pretty much instantly, know who he is without him announcing it. Different enough that Skulker spent so much time chasing after him and hunting him and talking about displaying his ‘pelt’ as a collection prize. Ghosts don’t fear him, not in the way he worries Sam and Tucker are starting to, but he still doesn’t fit in.

Maybe that’s why he gets like this, why he feels empty and weighed down at the same time. Theoretically, he’s not the only halfa - Vlad and Dani both exist - but… they still aren’t the same. Dani, because she’s never been human, was created as a half ghost and even though she has some of his memories, even she admits that it isn’t the same. And Vlad, because he doesn’t miss being human at all. He likes being a halfa, likes the power and the benefits, isn’t bothered by his less-human tendencies and embraces his creepy Obsessions. 

Danny is, for all intents and purposes, alone, even when he’s surrounded by others. He’s too dead to relate to humans, too alive to relate to ghosts, and too conflicted to relate to other halfas. It’d be funny, if he could feel anything other than lost right now. 

He’s drifted high enough that he’s above the clouds, substantially past the point that oxygen thins to an unbreathable level, but Danny hasn’t needed to breathe in over a year now and he keeps going up (or maybe it’s out, at this point? What’s the line between ‘up’ and ‘out’ when one is going away from an entire planet? Past the troposphere? Stratosphere? Somewhere in the thermosphere, where the technical ‘midpoint’ in their atmosphere would be?). 

Space is, as far as they know, the loneliest place in the universe, and while Danny strongly believes there’s other beings out there somewhere (‘life’, humans would say, but can he really limit it to _life_ when there’s so much beyond that, when he himself can't be considered _alive_?), he’s never encountered anyone yet. He’ll go back down eventually, when the hollow feeling where his heart should’ve been beating starts to close and the endless pull of his Obsession starts to win out again, but for now he’ll keep going and going. Perhaps he’ll reach the moon this time, perhaps he’ll only just make it past the exosphere - either way, he’s not in a rush. 

With a little help from abilities no one else knows he has, abilities he’s slowly been honing as Clockwork tampers, pausing and unpausing time, believing no one notices him, then truly no one will notice Danny being gone.

**Author's Note:**

> My depression has being acting up like shit lately, so I ended up writing this - writing is, at least, more productive then turning on Netflix and zoning out completely. Did I project being lonely onto Danny? Oh absolutely. Do I think Danny would actually feel like this? Not always, obviously, but... yeah. 
> 
> Comments are very welcome, tell me your favorite line or something you liked, tell me how your pandemic is going, vent about loneliness, whatever. Personally, I'm 500+ miles away from any and all of my friends, and would very much like to drift into outer space for a bit. The change of scenery would be nice, at least.


End file.
